Isaac and Eleanor Visit 2013

James had an awesome playdate with Isaac and Eleanor last week. He's not used hanging out with other kids that much, especially at our place, so it was quite the treat for him. Something else that was fun was seeing the kids play in James's room. Up until recently it has pretty much been a room where James sleeps and gets changed. Somewhat recently I've arranged the room to make most of his toys accessible to him in here and we otherwise baby-proofed it so that he can hang out in his room alone, but he's doesn't usually stay in there long. Together, the three kids quickly converted the room into a full-blown playroom.

Isaac and Eleanor check out James's toys.

James is thinking, "What is going on here?"

James and Isaac playing with the doggie together

Not that they stayed in the one room. They were back and forth between James's room and the living room which was a little challenging and made me wish I had a nice big basement playroom. Hm, maybe one day. Rachel included a roll of coloring book paper for each of the kids. Issac carefully shaded borders while James scribbled the general areas where there were shapes that interested him, such as stars. Eleanor more or less ignored the whole project.

Coloring time!

James coloring in the stars

They were extremely civilized for snack time. It was practically a little tea party. This might be due to the fact that juice is the ultimate in sugary treats for them. I mean look at these happy smiles. Definitely the juice.

Snack time

After snack time, and probably also due to the juice, they were a little rowdier. Eleanor got her important pretend phone calls out of the way first. Then there was some general chasing each other around and poking at each other. I decided it would be the perfect time for an episode of Mickey Mouse while the juice left their systems.

Making some important calls

 

This happened.

Resulting in me turning to Mickey Mouse for assistance.

They were pretty cooperative about me turning off the television, probably because I warned them I was going to turn it off several times. Mickey can sometimes be as hardcore as juice. Isaac went back to working on his coloring, and the little ones worked on a puzzle together for an unbelievably long period of time.

Eleanor and James work on a puzzle.

All four of us had Rachel's delicious pasta salad for lunch, though my presence is not reflected in this photo. What is reflected is that all the kids insisted on inviting some stuffed animals to lunch, so there were actually seven of us at lunch with varying degrees of lunch consumed. I think with three kids, you just generally operate in their universe.

Lunch for seven!

My favorite part of the playdate was when we gathered all the stuffed animals and had a pillow fight with them. I guess you would technically call that a "stuffed animal fight." The kids thought it was hilarious fun. I wish I could bottle children's laughter because it's magical. Obviously, James was very sad to see them go, and asked to play with Eleanor again as recently as yesterday. We love you guys and can't wait to see you again!

James goes down after a teddy to the head

Two down!

The stuffed animal fight aftermath